Why, you ask? Because he’s already hunted vampires, fought zombies, and we can’t prove he wasn’t a ninja robot t-rex. Also, today is, after all, International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and this is exactly the kind of thing one does to celebrate:

Ahoy! Four score an’ se’en voyages ago th’ old salts brought fore on these waters, a new crew, free an’ dedicated t’ th’ accord that all swabs be on the account.

Now we be engaged in war amongst we brothers o’ th’ coast, testin’ whether that crew, or any crew so conceived an’ so dedicated, can hold fast. We be met on th’ briney deep. We be gathered t’ th’ Spanish Main, Davey Jone`s locker fer them who here gave the’r lives that th’ crew might sail. ‘t be altogether fittin’ an’ proper that we be ortin’ ta do this.

We canna dedicate — we canna consecrate — we canna hallow — th’ deep. Scallywags, livin` or dead men be, layed by th’ lee, be havin’ consecrated ‘t, far above our poor power t’ add or detract. Ye`ll nay strike th’ colors, nor long reckon what we say here, but ‘t can nereforget what they did here. ‘Tis fer us th’ livin’, rather, t’ be dedicated here t’ th’ unfinished work which they who fought here be havin’ walked the plank. ‘Tis rather fer us t’ be comin’ about t’ th’ great task remainin’ before us — that from these honored dead we take increased custom fer that cause which they gave th’ last full piece of eight — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall nay be havin’ sank t’Davy Jones’ locker in vain — that this crew, damn th’r eyes, be havin’ a new birth o’ freedom — an’ that th’ Articles o’ th’ brethren, by th’ brethren, fer th’ brethren, shant dance wi’ Jack Ketch.

Yes, I know I’ve posted pirate translations of our sixteenth President before (many, many, voyages ago in annals of history), but this is a much better translation, so I’m doing it again, in the interest of accuracy.

In any case, enjoy your “Arrr!”s and “Avast”s today. Also, please enjoy Jonah’s The Pirate Song while you’re at it.

I was saddened this morning to hear that our family’s feline elder statesman, Shamokin (seen above with his representative curmudgeonly expression) passed quietly last night, asleep on his favorite chair.

He came into our family as a small kitten, whose eyes took up roughly 80 percent of his head, shortly after we adopted Calypso, and the two of them were pretty much inseparable for the next fourteen years (and he suffered a months-long depression after her passing last year, and was never quite the same after the loss of his long time companion). He was devoted to my lovely wife, who filled the “mom” role for him as a kitten (I suspect he was a bit younger than advertized, and wasn’t quite fully weaned when we got him), and on through his life.

He was a bit more aloof than other cats I’ve shared space with, but was always pleasant, if not always affectionate to me – he was the very definition of a “one person cat”, and that person was Colleen. Still, he was always good for a refined and noble greeting, and occasionally stooped to making use of the lap and petting services of someone as lowly as myself.

As a kitten, he trained himself to fetch. He also, for some reason unknown to the universe, was very fond of toaster waffles. If he heard the toaster ejecting an Eggo, he was immediately present and persistent in demanding his rightful tribute.

I’ll miss his dignified and occasionally haughtly presence. He was a fine pet.

Like music? Like books? Like geeky stuff? Got at least five bucks?

Then please consider downloading my friend John Anealio’s new album: Laser Zombie Robot Love. John’s a talented musician, songwriter, scholar of 80s metal ephemera and all-around good guy whose music you should be listening to: Finely crafted folk-rock music in the Coulton vein, with a decidedly literary sci-fi bent. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll swoon, you’ll (if you’re like me) covet his guitar and bouzouki playing ability. Most importantly, you’ll be supporting creative people who get excited and make things!

He describes his work thusly:

John Anealio performs geeky anthems for writers, librarians, lovers of Sci-Fi, Best Buy customers & robots. His music sounds like John Mayer, Weezer & James Taylor playing Dungeons & Dragons together on their iPhones

See? Doesn’t that sound like fun? You’ll like it. “Steampunk Girl” alone is worth five bucks…might as well get it with 19 other fun tunes about iPhones, George R.R. Martin, Zombies, and Pr0nbots.

Have I sold you on this yet? Of course I have. Go ahead and click here (or on that big picture of the cover art above, come to think of it) and start downloading!

…from Beth Patterson and her Irish Bouzouki.

It’s possible I may be a little bit in love. Just a little bit. Temporarily.

________

* – for those of you who might be confused by the quotes, please click here for an explanation.

Oh look! A new Bret Alexander/Badlees tune. Many of you know exactly how big a deal this is for me. The rest of you? Rest assured that it’s a very big deal.

Because hey, why not – tunes!

1. “Psycho (live)”- Elvis Costello & the Attractions
2. “Disc Wars” – Daft Punk
3. “Bring Me Li’l Water Silvy (live)” – The Wailin’ Jennys
4. “July, July!” – The Decembrists
5. “Which Describes How You’re Feeling” – They Might Be Giants
6. “52 Girls” – The B-52’s
7. “Elanor Rigby” – The Beatles
8. “Why Do You Breathe” – Lisa Loeb
9. “Ghost (live)” – Indigo Girls
10. “Been So Gone” – Big Back Forty
11. “Keep On Lovin’ You” – The Donnas

This selection doesn’t really represent what I’ve *really* been listening to this week; that soundtrack has included, among other things Willie Nelson’s Heroes record from a few months back, Bon Jovi’s 7800° Fahrenheit (I had a temporary attack of 7th grade near the Wal-Mart five dollar bin), Damn Yankees (more 80s hair), and Jonah Knight’s version of “Santa Baby” which he was kind enough to send my way (via his fan email list – see what you’re missing?) from the upcoming Another Creepy Christmas record.

Anybody out there listening to anything interesting?

Imogen remains unconscious, occasionally catching flashes of activity around her, but can’t really make sense of it. She can’t help but feel, however, that her continued torpor will be ultimately rejuvinating.

—

This week’s recap is rather uneventful because I am feeling a bit under the weather and wasn’t up to gaming after putting in 10 hours at the office. Imogen gets to rest another week and recover her strength, just as I spent the evening recovering mine, crashed on the couch watching one of those storage unit auction reality shows.

If you’re curious about what actually happened at this week’s Encounters sessions, there’ll likely be a one or two sentence summary posted here before long.

I hope we’ll both be feeling better next week.

With school back in session, it was only a matter of time before stories like this one started cropping up; with parents complaining to school boards about the inappropriateness of titles on the school reading list.

Not surprisingly, I’m against this sort of thing. Part of the process of education is expanding one’s base of experience and boundaries; we ought to be exposing people to new things – books are a great way to do that. Sure, some of the material might be (and ought to be) challenging; the idea is to get kids to think about things that are new to them, or to think about things they know from a different perspective. Some of these things might fall outside the bounds of comfort for moral guardians (and most of those bounds are, in practice at least, a means of exercising control of information in order to control people), but life doesn’t always fall within the bubble these folks want to create, either – and books are one way of describing life and the human experience – a pretty safe way, at that. I’d rather my kids come in contact with things like (in the case of the books called out in the link) sexuality and drug use through the venue of a book, where they can think and ask questions in a safe environmment, rather than, as they say, “on the street” where naiveity in those sorts of areas can lead to all sorts of bad places.

a pretty good rule of thumb regarding books in this context – if somebody wants to keep you from reading something, there’s probably a very good reason why you should be reading it. Gatekeepers have their place, but that place isn’t necessarily standing between growing minds and information that will foster that growth. Our responsibility as a society here isn’t to keep our young people sheltered from information; but rather to be available to provide guidance and additional context about the information so that these young people have the proper tools to make good, informed choices.

So in closing, I’m going to quote the late comic Mitch Hedberg, who through his stoner persona, hit on some great peals of wisdom:

Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read!

Maybe I should have saved this one until later in the month, when Banned Books Week hits, but it’s just as relevant today as it will be on September 24, so I’m going to let it stand.

And now you will too.

You’re welcome.

When last we left our protagonists, they’d just overcome an attack by subterranean creepy crawlies, and encountered (and dealt with) their rival adventuring crew on the way to the hidden temple to perform a ritual at a particular altar in order to channel it’s arcane energy toward the will of their superiors…

Taking a short rest to regroup after the battle, Imogen the wizard, human slave to the drow of House Melarn, took a moment for meditation while her companions nursed their wounds and cleaned their weapons. She closed her eyes, calming her body and reasserting control over the arcane forces within her.

After a moment, she opened her eyes, and immediately felt that things had changed*. She was in the same cavern, of that she was certain, though her innate sense of the arcane betrayed a difference in the underlying fabric of the world, though she couldn’t be certain as to it’s nature.

She was also alone.

Her companions were gone, though she’d only closed her eyes for a moment. She rose, surveying the scene around her: evidence of the battle remained, though it too suggested a conflict with a different rhythm, different instruments, different players. As she began to explore the space for further clues, she heard the unmistakable sounds of battle reverberating through the tunnels ahead. She quickly collected her meager posessions and charged down the natural hallway toward the conflict.

She soon arrived at the source; a group of drow adventurers were locked in conflict with a large group of svirfneblin – deep gnomes of the Underdark, sworn enemies of the drow of the city of Menzoberranzan, home of her masters.

Imogen hestitated; the drow party before her were not the companions she set off with, though several wore the unmistakable sigil of House Melarn on their clothing or armor; the same symbol branded into the skin of her upper arm, marking her as property. She had no particular love for the drow; they’d captured and enslaved her as a child, tearing her away from her family and community and forcing her into a life of servitude. Her overseers treated her fairly enough (a consideration, she suspected to her potential usefulness as a mage; a consideration she cultivated with minor enchantments), though they still kept her in chains. To her, every situation was evaluated in terms of it’s potential to further her own personal interests and goals – of these, her eventual freedom dominated all others.

The moment was shattered as a sling bullet cast by one of the svirfneblin guards SPRANG(!)ed off of the stone wall behind her, inches from her head. The group’s drow priestess, a woman she did not recognize, but who was unmistakably of House Melarn, shouted – “You, Slave! Deal with these vermin!” Imogen’s freedom, for the moment, would have to wait.

Summoning up her arcane resources, she cast her beguiling strands into the fray, immediately removing two of the gnomes from the conflict permanently, and knocking several others back, giving the drow combatants a bit of room to maneuver and redeploy. The drow were scattered and disorganized, as if they were the victims of an ambush.

The drow party was made up of the priestess, a hexblade warlock with his summoned blade of pure magick, an axe-wielding warrior in heavy armor, and a mage. This mage acted next, casting a bolt of lightning into a cluster of gnomes, striking one and arcing into another. Clearly, this mage’s skills tended toward pure firepower rather than the more subtle enchantments Imogen wielded.

The two largest gnomes, stockier than the others and armed with heavy war picks – overseers, perhaps? – launched into the fray, badly wounding the drow warrior and warlock; more sling bullets flew over the fray, apparently slaying the warrior and ricoheting into the priestess. Imogen attempted to cloud the mind of one of these pick-wielding adversaries and turn it against it’s allies, but her enchantment faltered, drawing the combatant’s attention. His strike with the war pick connected, spilling Imogen’s blood and knocking her prone on the cavern floor. She cursed her badly chosen tactic, and remained on the ground, feigning death until a new opportunity presented itself.

As she lay on the ground, Imogen passed up several opportunities for small strikes against the gnomes, waiting for the optimal circumstance; though badly wounded, she drew upon her strength, finding her second wind as the priestess and warlock fell to the wrath of picks and bullets. As the drow mage summoned up the power of elemental fire to drive back their attackers, Imogen spotted her chance to act.

Remaining prone, she once again overcame the will of her attackers, creating in their minds the irresistable image that the ground under their feet was crumbling; opening into a bottomless chasm beneath them. three of the attackers fell to the ground, wounded and immobile; even the slinger who saw the illusion for what it was was not completely immune; he too fell to the ground, hard, and suffering minor injuries.

For a moment, it seemed as if the tide of battle was turned, but another gnome slinger was not affected by the illusion, and let fly at it’s source: Imogen. The last things that passed through her mind before the stone struck her was the image of the lone drow wizard standing alone and bloodied as the remaining svirfneblin began to advance, and her resigned hope that none of this was real**…

__________

*- the “change” of course, was the fact that I played in a different location this week, with different players. I joined the battle already in progress because I arrived a few minutes late – unfortunate, but it makes for a convenient in-game narrative.

**- This encounter was a TPK – total party kill. All of us went down. The players at my table weren’t particularly experienced, the party wasn’t particularly balanced, and the opposition was very tough and rolled really well. It was bad, but things like this sometimes happen. Things may not be entirely over for Imogen, however…be sure to check back for next weeks’ recap!